What are the determinants of a happy and fulfilling life?
This is surely one of life’s biggest questions, and a question that has interested many of our ancestors. Buddha famously gave up his kingdom in search of happiness. Several Greek philosophers (from Aristotle to Epicurus and Plato to Socrates) had their own views on what it takes to be happy. And of course, we all have our own theories about happiness too.
How valid are our theories?
Until recently, if you wished for an answer to this question, you would've been forced to base it on discussions with spiritual leaders. Or, if you were lucky, you could've based it on late-night (and perhaps intoxicant-fueled) conversations with friends and family. Happily, all that has changed now. Over the past decade-and-a-half, scientists have gotten into the act big time. We now have a pretty good idea of what it takes to lead a happy and fulfilling life.
This course, based on the award-winning class offered both at the Indian School of Business and at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin, developed by Prof. Raj Raghunathan (aka "Dr. Happy-smarts") draws content from a variety of fields, including psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral decision theory to offer a tested and practical recipe for leading a life of happiness and fulfillment.
Although not mandatory, reading Prof. Raj's forthcoming book, titled If you're so smart, why aren't you happy? can help you review and assimilate the material covered in this book at your leisure.
For Coursera learners alone, the hardcover version of the book is available for a deep discount of 50%, plus shipping and handling. You can order the hardcover for 50% off by writing to Aaron at: Aaron@800ceoread.com. Please mention that you are a student of the "coursera happiness course" in your email.
The course will feature guest appearances by several well-known thought leaders, including:
- Dan Ariely (author of Predictably Irrational and, soon to be released, Irrationally Yours),
- Ed Diener (“Dr. Happiness”),
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (author of Flow),
By taking this course, you will discover the answers to questions such as:
- Why aren’t the smart-and-the-successful as happy as they could—or should—be
- What are the “7 Deadly Happiness Sins” that even the smart and the successful commit?, and
- What are the “7 Habits of the Highly Happy” and how can you implement them in your life?
By the end of the course, I expect students who have been diligent with the lectures and exercises to not just gain a deeper understanding of the science of happiness, but to also be significantly happier.

講師

Dr. Rajagopal Raghunathan

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[MUSIC] Zdraveyte, my Bulgarian and other friends. I ended the last video by pointing out how leading a healthier lifestyle, which basically translates into doing three things well. Eating Right, Moving More, and Sleeping Better can vastly improve how you feel, and as a result can help you appreciate the positive role that uncertainty and lack of control play in our lives. In this video, I wanna summarize the scientific evidence that shows the link between leading a healthy lifestyle and well being. Actually let me start first by telling you how not leading a healthy life style, that is not eating right, not moving enough, and not sleeping well can have a negative effect on your health and happiness. Ready? I should mention, by the way, before I start, that I took many of these findings directly from Tom Rath's excellent book Eat, Move, Sleep, I should also mention that what I am going to share with you barely scratches the surface of he treasure trove of information that's out there on this topic. Particularly in Tom's book. Let me start with what eating badly can do on us. And to talk about that, I will first need to tell you a little bit about what eating badly even means. As you know, there is a lot of information and opinions, differences in opinions about what constitutes a good diet. But what I think almost everybody will agree with is that eating badly means eating a lot of processed foods, food that comes in cans and packages, eating things that are easily processed by the body like sugar and simple carbohydrates, not eating enough vegetables and fruits, and finally, eating a lot of bad fats, trans fat and saturated fat. That's what eating badly means. Now let me turn to what happens when you eat badly. First off, unsurprisingly, findings show that you're more likely to gain weight and become obese if you eat badly. Secondly, findings show that you're likely to have lower levels of energy if you eat like that. Both of these things, weight gain and lower energy levels, are obviously gonna have a negative impact on your mood. And add to your internal stress. That's, in turn, going to make you feel like you don't have enough internal control, and therefore is going to want you to take more external control. In addition, here's what's been found about what eating badly can do. Findings show that sugar, in particular, and it turns out that, as Americans at least, we eat too much of it. An astounding 150 pounds of it per person per year. It is actually a bigger killer than is cocaine, heroin and any other controlled substance all added together. If you find this surprising, so was I, even I was surprised, but one reason why sugar is such a big killer is because it increases the chances of getting cancer. One paper even calls sugar, candy for cancer cells. Meaning that cancer cells really love it and flourish when you eat sugar. Findings also show that when you eat badly, in particular when your diet doesn't have enough fruits and veggies you actually look less attractive. In one study people were asked to rate others on the quality of their skin. What the finding showed is that people who ate a lot of fruits and veggies were rated as having better looking skin. Better skin tan than those who ate less fruits and veggies. In fact the study found that the quality of the tan of the skin of those who eat a lot of fruits and veggies was rated as even better than those who got a natural tan from the sunlight. In other words, eating fruits and veggies is a better way to get a good tan to your skin than as getting it directly from the sun. Another study found that a diet with high amounts of trans fat is associated with aggression, yes aggression. And yet another study, found that a diet with high amounts of trans fat, and saturated fat, is associated with feeling depressed. So lowering your bad fat intake, can have a direct, and positive effect. On your emotional health. Or put it conversely, when you eat a lot of bad fat, you're likely to be aggressive and depressed. And not just that, you're also likely to become stupid or act stupid and lazy, as the study that you're seeing on the screen found. And because you get aggressive when you eat fat, you're also more likely to get into fights and arguments. With your spouse if you eat a lot of bad fat. That's just a quick summary of just some of the bad effects of eating a bad diet on your emotional and physical health. And like I said earlier, that doesn't even scratch the surface. But hopefully you get a good idea of the picture. Now let me turn to the bad effects of not getting enough physical activity, or as Conrad puts it, not moving more. First, what constitutes not moving enough? One thing that's definitely bad, is sitting for more than six hours per day. Since doing so greatly increases the chances of premature death. Sitting disease as Tom calls it, is the most underrated health threat of modern times and he's got very good reasons for saying this. According to a Male Clinic study, sitting is just as bad as smoking is when it comes to the risk of heart disease. Another study found along similar lines that inactivity kills more people worldwide than smoking does. If this is surprising to you, it was surprising to me too. But after I looked into it a little bit more, it turns out that the reason why sitting is so bad for you is because it causes a slew of other negative effects. For example, sitting is a leading cause of obesity, which, of course, we all know is big killer. So, consider this fact that Tom notes in his book. In the past two decades, the amount of time of time exercising has actually stayed more or less the same. But, the amount of time spent sitting has increased considerably, and so has the obesity rate, which has doubled. So, there's a strong correlation between an idle lifestyle, sitting a lot, and obesity. Another study found, on the harmful effects of sedentary lifestyle, that even if you exercise a lot, say you exercise one hour per day, every day of the week, seven hours a week. That may still not be enough to counteract the bad effects of sitting. Findings from the paper that you see on your screen now show that even among those that exercise as much as seven hours a week, those who spent most of their time sitting had 50% greater risk of death from any cause. What this means is that you can't just sit all day and exercise for one hour in the evening, say, and think that you're all safe. You need to move constantly throughout the day. That's what the study is telling you. Another interesting study found that every hour that you spend idly sitting in front of the TV after the age of 25 decreases your life expectancy by 22 minutes. What this means is that if you watch two hours of TV a day, that's it two hours of TV a day, that's like losing a whole day from your life very single month. Okay, now that we've talked about the bad effects of both not eating right and not moving enough, let's move on to sleep and the importance of getting a good night's sleep. First off, again, what does not getting enough sleep mean? It means getting less than seven hours of good quality sleep per night. If you think that that's way more sleep than you need, think again, because results from a study that explicitly looked into this issue found that the vast majority of us, 95% of us, which basically means almost everybody. Need some type somewhere between seven and nine hours of sleep per night. They found that only 2.5% of the people felt rested with less than seven hours of sleep. So if you feel that you can perform perfectly well with six hours of sleep you're almost certain to be mistaken. You just don't know how much better you'll be and feel if you got more sleep. That said, let me get to the bad effects of not getting enough sleep. First, findings show that you look less attractive yes you actually look less attractive when you don't get enough sleep. As this paper published in the British Medical Journal noted. Second, you're likely to make worse decisions when you're sleep deprived. One study found that 90 minutes less sleep than you need, lowers your daytime alertness by as much as one-third. Yet another study, found that sleep improves the emotional stability of kids, and makes them less impulsive. As a result of being less impulsive, when you get enough sleep but likely to eat healthier or put conversely, when you don't get enough sleep you crave more unhealthy food and therefore you're likely to put on weight particularly, in the wrong places. You're also likely to be in a much better mood it turns out, when you get a good nights sleep because. Good sleep takes the edge off bad memories by assigning meaning to them and by letting you achieve something that's known as psychological closure. Or conversely, you're likely to be crabby and in a bad mood if you don't get enough sleep. I could go on and on about the importance of getting good sleep, but I will end with just three more, I think, interesting findings. First, being sleep deprived is the equivalent of being drunk on the road. Your chances of getting into an accident are just as high when you're sleep deprives. Say you have four hours less sleep than you need, as having a six pack of beer sloshing around in your tummy. You're likely to be less satisfied with your job another study found when you're sleep deprived. One study showed that poor quality sleep was twice as common among those who weren't satisfied with their jobs. And finally, your health is likely to suffer when you don't get enough sleep. One study found that poor sleep puts stress on your immune system, as a result of which you're more likely to get cold and flu when you're sleep deprived. Indeed, another study found that lack of sleep can actually lead to something even more serious. It can lead to cancer. Hopefully, hearing all of this has convinced you of all three things as being important, eating right, moving more, and sleeping better. Not just for feeling good, but also for having a sense of control over your life. And therefore, leading a healthy lifestyle is critical if you want to be in shape. To appreciate the positive role that uncertainty and lack of control can play in your life. And as a result, if you want to get rid of or at least mitigate the fourth deadly happiness sin, the sin of being overly controlling, it's crucial that you get on the healthy lifestyle bandwagon. In the next video I will highlight some very simple steps that you can take in order to lead a healthier lifestyle. Ciao till then. [MUSIC]